


Windy Smile

by flippyspoon



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Romance, idk all the things lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-28 23:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20434460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/pseuds/flippyspoon
Summary: Billy's mother comes back.





	Windy Smile

**Author's Note:**

> For Weirdlet! Thank you!

Billy woke up and like every morning since around the age of eleven, he wondered immediately if he was in for it and like every morning since he’d been told that his father was dead, he remembered the fact like some forgotten dream. That meant he wasn’t in for it. He wasn’t in for it with the shadow either. The shadow was gone.

Still, that feeling of being trouble with _someone_ often took a hold of his mind like a vise. Now he sat up in bed and reflexively traced the scars all over his chest and stomach with the pads of his fingers, as if to make sure it had not all been just a dream.

The shadow was gone and he was alive.

Neil was dead.

Neil was _dead_.

Neil had been one of the flayed.

Billy grabbed his pack of Marlboros and lit his morning cigarette before rising to his feet. He went to his window and opened it, sticking the cigarette between his lips before leaning out to feel the sun on his face and take a blessed drag.

He couldn’t say he was happy about Neil being dead and he couldn’t say he was exactly sad either. But things were definitely easier than they would have been coming back from that military hospital with his dad still around to give him shit.

It was autumn and everything in Hawkins had turned orange and brown. But autumn brought with it a peaceful feeling. It also brought a chill in the air that made Billy shiver as a breeze through the window blew his long curls around. He smoked his cigarette and looked out at Cherry Lane, watching birds play in the fallen leaves all over the front lawn. He should rake it. That was the kind of thing his father would get pissed about if he didn’t think to do it before he was asked. But now, because nobody was expecting it of him it seemed like something to do. He had a part-time job at the hardware store and it didn’t take up much of his week. If he was honest with himself, he went a little nuts these days if he didn’t have enough to do.

When he’d finished his cigarette, Billy put on a clean white t-shirt and a red flannel shirt and went out to breakfast where Susan and Max were already eating.

He wasn’t working at the hardware store today which usually meant he’d go on a walk and inevitably end up at Family Video just to loiter and pretend to look at movies while really staring at Steve Harrington, but now he had something to do. 

He’d stare at Steve later.

“Billy, there’s bacon!” Max said brightly. She smiled up at him in that mildly worried way she smiled at him now. It was another thing to get used to. Max didn’t only not hate him anymore, she was seemingly always concerned. So was Susan. 

“Cool,” he mumbled, and Susan patted his shoulder and told him she’d make him a plate. He took a seat and glanced up at Susan who seemed a little fluttery and nervous as she fixed him a plate with scrambled eggs and bacon and home fries and fruit. It was a fancier breakfast than usual for the middle of the week. 

“Special occasion?” Billy said. 

Because something seemed a little off.

Max and Susan shared a look he couldn’t read and Susan said, “No. Not really.” 

He dismissed the off feeling. He had off feelings all the time anyway, often panicking for no reason and sure that the shadow was going to take him over again.

“I thought I’d rake the yard today,” Billy said. Susan set the plate full of food in front of him and his mouth watered. Max looked so happy as he shoved fork fulls of eggs and potato into his mouth, it was slightly embarrassing. “I could do the rain gutters too. Don’t want the rain gutters all messed. Might rain this weekend.”

Susan automatically said, “You don’t have to-”

“Somebody should do it,” he said quickly. “Got nothin’ better to do.”

He swallowed his bite of food and took a gulp of orange juice, feeling one of those small swells of anxiety because what if Susan insisted he _shouldn’t_ just because Neil had ridden his ass so hard before except that he wanted to do that stuff now if only to prove he wasn’t a useless piece of shit, she had to let him prove he wasn’t a-

“That would be lovely,” Susan said, smiling easily. 

He took a breath and nodded. “Cool.”

Max looked at the clock above the fridge and said, “Ah, the bus!”

Max took the bus to school now. The Camaro sat bashed up in the garage, covered in a tarp. He hadn’t driven since he’d come back. That was one of those things they didn’t talk about.

Sometimes he really missed driving Max to school.

“Have a good day, Billy,” Max said. She looked right at him and it was weird how much she meant it.

He tossed her a nod and said, “Don’t let anybody give ya shit.”

“I won’t!” She grabbed her backpack and kissed her mother on the cheek and as she passed him she tousled his hair like he was a kid and he bit back a smile.

When it was just Susan and him at the table, it really felt like something was off again.

Out of nowhere he began to fear that Susan was working up to asking him to move out.

It wasn’t like he was her son after all.

But all she said was, “I’m going to the store later. Is there anything you need?”

“I’m out of shaving cream,” he said, shrugging.

“Sure,” she said. 

That probably meant she would buy him shampoo too, and hairspray, and a bunch of other things he hadn’t even asked for. She might even buy him cigarettes. Susan had been overcompensating a lot since he’d come back. It didn’t suck actually.

Now things felt unbearably awkward as they usually did when it was just the two of them, and he scarfed up his food quickly and said, “Think I’ll start on those leaves.”

“Thank you, Billy!” Susan said quickly. “That’s very sweet of you!”

His cheeks burned and he nodded mutely, as he went out to the backyard. Susan had talked like that when she had first gotten together with his father, trying to get on his good side until she’d gotten to know him and all. Now she said things like that all the time just to be nice.

He supposed it _was_ sweet of him to volunteer to rake the leaves.

Still felt...odd.

He went out to the backyard to fetch a rake from the garden shed and it was cold enough that he buttoned up his flannel shirt before finding a rubber band in his pocket to tie his hair up with.

It was quiet in the yard except for the occasional car and the rustle of leaves and neighbors shouting at each other across their yards. Billy didn’t hate it. He’d always despised silence before the shadow. He’d hated being left alone with his thoughts and the feelings that always ran too loud and too hot.

Now he liked quiet. He liked the peace of raking the leaves into piles that he shoveled into garbage bags and left by the trash bins. When he was done, he sat on the front stoop of the house and smoked. Susan had gone off to work. 

He was alone, which he didn’t much like these days but alone outside wasn’t too bad.

He was about to start on the rain gutters when an unfamiliar car slowed, approaching the house.

Billy didn’t think anything of it until the car turned around at the end of Cherry Lane and crept back up to the Mayfield house and pulled into the driveway where Susan usually parked.

Billy jumped to his feet, clenching and unclenching his fists. The car was an old orange Volkswagen Beetle. He wondered if it was one of Dr. Owens’ people. Owens came around to check on him from time to time, but he couldn’t imagine somebody from the military hospital coming around in an old orange VW. The driver was a blonde woman and when she got out of the car and looked at him over the top of the Beetle, Billy lost his breath.

It was his mother and he couldn’t speak.

Julia Hargrove. Or maybe she went by Julia Callahan. again.

She looked just the same and really, it had only been about seven years since he had seen her last. It felt like a century, but she only had a couple more lines on her face as she walked around the car and slowly approached him, looking as dazed as he was. Her hair was still as blonde as ever and feathered out, falling past her shoulders. She wore a flowered white Gunne Sax dress and a long brown coat. 

“Hello, Billy.” She smiled softly and he could only stare at her. 

He found his voice and said, “What… What are you doing here?”

She clasped her hands in front of her and he watched her fingers twist together. She was nervous.

“Your step-mother called me,” she said. “She found my phone number in your father’s things?”

Susan. That’s what Susan had been so nervous about. She had known his mother was coming and hadn’t warned him. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if she had.

“Why didn’t she tell me?” He blurted out. It seemed like a silly thing to ask. Of all the things that he could ask his mother who was standing in front of him like he had fantasized about so many times...

“She...didn’t trust that I’d show up,” his mother said. “Didn’t want to get your hopes up if I chickened out. Probably wise of her.”

That made sense. Since, after all, where had she been for the last seven years?

“Why did you show up?” Billy snapped.

He had imagined it so many times but he’d let those dreams go a long time ago. Dreams were for little kids. Dreams were for pussies, his dad would have said. 

She took a deep breath and gave him a little lopsided smile, cocking her head. Suddenly, he felt eight again. “I tried to visit you so many times,” she said softly. “He wouldn’t let me.”

_Oh_.

He was suddenly overwhelmed with relief that she hadn’t been around to see what he’d become. 

But now here she was. He found himself wrapping his arms around his stomach reflexively, as if she might see his scars even under two shirts. As if she might somehow _know_.

“Susan said you’d…” She swallowed and a gust of wind blew her hair around. She looked just like she had on the beach. _Seven feet._ “That you almost _died_?” She covered her mouth and her hand was shaking and tears slid down on her cheeks. “Some big accident with the shopping mall…?”

“Uh...it’s hard to explain,” Billy mumbled. He wanted another cigarette but it was already surreal to suddenly be standing in front of his mouth. It didn’t feel right to smoke in front of her.

What she had said before suddenly penetrated and her tears were setting him off now, a lump forming in his throat. “You really tried to see me? You’re lying,” he said thickly. “You’re fucking _lying_.”

She didn’t wipe her eyes and it was excruciating to see her standing there, crying, trying to explain herself. “I came once to that blue house you moved to when your father married Susan. In San Diego. I came back. Neil’s brother gave me the address. I came to see you one day and he sent me away. I remember, I remember there was…a dog next door that barked his head off. It was...it was a Chow-Chow!” She scrambled for the words, clearly afraid he wouldn’t believe her but he found himself nodding, his eyes wide.

The Chow’s name had been Lucy. The thing hated everyone and never shut up.

She went on. “He said you wouldn’t want to see me and if I tried to come again, he’d make sure I would never find you. But sometimes, I would come and… I’d talk to him, I’d beg just to know how you were. How you were doing. He would send me away… He said if I wrote you letters, he would burn them.”

“He’s...he’s dead now,” Billy said. It took everything not to burst into tears. His throat hurt. 

“I know.” 

She stood there on the front lawn and Billy was suddenly paralyzed with fear that she would leave and said, “Do you want to come in?” He pointed back at the house as if she might think he lived somewhere else.

“Yes.” She smiled just like she used to and warmth rushed through him.

She had tried to see him. She had tried all that time. She had cared after all.

It felt even stranger to have his mother in the house, it was like two lives merging together. They stood around in the living room, half wishing there was some other adult around to do the adult things. 

But he managed to say, “You want something to drink?”

“Oh, you don’t have to…”

“Cmon, I’m gonna have a Coke,” Billy said. He led her into the kitchen. “I can make coffee? I know you’ll put about a half a gallon of milk and a cup of sugar in it.”

She laughed and his heart felt oversized in his chest. He knew that laugh. It sounded like wind chimes by the ocean. “You remember,” she said. “Yes, alright.”

Billy had made coffee for his father a million times even if he didn’t drink it so often himself and put on a pot. When his mother sat down at the kitchen table and they both had beverages in front of them, things felt marginally more normal. Except that he had no idea what to say.

“I’m sorry for the way things turned out,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Billy. I want to… If I can at all, I want to try to make up for it. But if you want me to go, I will. I’m not here to mess things up.”

He nodded, staring at this hands, and downed half his Coke and felt like he’d pass out if he didn’t smoke soon and murmured, “I don’t want you to go. I…” 

Instead of trying to see what he felt, he sighed and reached under the collars of his shirts and pulled out the necklace, her necklace, that he had worn all this time.

“I never wanted you to go,” he said, and now he couldn’t help his own tears. 

“I could stay here?” Her voice pitched up. They were both a mess and trying to pretend they weren’t. But his mother had never been any good at that to begin with and he was so much like his mother. “I could stay here in town, visit as long as you-”

“Don’t _leave_,” he whispered, and then they were embracing, turning in their chairs to hold each other and crying on each other’s shoulders. He shut his eyes and felt his mother’s arms around him for the first time in seven years. 

“I won’t,” she said through her tears. “I won’t leave you again ever if you don’t want me too, Billy, my sweet boy.”

* * *

“I was going to clean out the rain gutters…” 

They had been talking for an hour and somehow, it felt normal. He had told her a version of what had happened to him and how Neil had treated him and left most of the important stuff out but it was obvious he was holding back. She didn’t push him. He could see that she recognized his pain. It was killing her. He didn’t want to think about that either.

He learned that she’d had a couple of boyfriends and no other children and lived in San Francisco for a while before moving in with her sister in New Mexico.

But just now, she had nowhere to be. 

“I’ll help you,” Julia said. “Then we should… I don’t know. Should we do something?”

“Susan’ll want to make you dinner or something,” Billy said. “Wait, shit. Are you hungry now?”

“Well, let’s do those rain gutters and I’ll take you to lunch? There must be somewhere to eat around here?”

“Yeah,” he muttered noncommittally.

They cleaned the rain gutters and it felt like when he was little, when he would try to help her with something; fumbling with a hoe in her garden or sloppily cracking eggs in the kitchen. Except it felt more like she was the kid now as she spotted him on a ladder.

When they were done, his stomach rumbled. It was nearly one. 

_What if he had a panic attack while they were out in town?_

_What if somebody treated him like he was weird and wrong like they sometimes did because they didn’t know how to treat the boy who had come back from the dead…_

_What if…?_

He was starting to panic at the idea of panicking and just then his mother said, “God, I need a smoke. If you don’t mind…” He followed her to her VW and she rooted around in a worn looking denim purse, taking out a pack of Virginia Slims and lighting up, looking exponentially more relaxed as she took a drag.

Billy sheepishly relented and took out his pack of Marlboros and she chuckled, rolling her eyes as she lit his smoke for him. They smoked together in companionable silence for a couple minutes before his mother said, “There’s something I want to say. It’s...touchy. I hope you don’t get angry if I’m…”

He shrugged in response, feeling those old defences rise again, though they weren’t what they used to be.

“Okay,” she said. “Well, do you remember when you were in fifth grade and you had that friend of yours, Kevin? You used to talk about Kevin all day.” She smiled fondly.

Billy flushed. Kevin had been his first crush.

“Yeah,” he said. “I remember that.”

“That was when I knew about you,” his mother said, as casual as anything. “And I never got to tell you it was okay. That you would always be my sweet boy. I didn’t want to say anything then because I didn’t want your father to figure it out.”

He hadn’t talked about Kevin in front of his father. Somehow he’d just known not to without being able to put a finger on why exactly. It turned out, he’d been right to make that call. Then he’d gotten better and better at covering until he’d tried to deny his sexuality altogether. If nothing else, those girls who screamed for him had made him feel pretty good about himself once in a while.

He chewed his lips and looked at his mother with big eyes. He could think of nothing better to say then, “Oh.”

His father had figured it out anyway. That had been half the trouble most of the time.

Julia reached up cradled his chin, stroking his cheek with her thumb and whispered, “My sweet boy.”

He felt like he was home for the first time in seven years.

* * *

They ate burgers at the diner in Hawkins and his mother bought him a strawberry milkshake, which had always been his favorite when he was little. 

He had an urge to take her to Family Video. 

It was stupid probably. Except that he didn’t _just_ stare at Steve Harrington when he went there to “browse.” He often actually spoke to Steve Harrington who, a lot of the time, couldn’t seem to quite look at him in the eye and would fidget with pens at his counter by the register and play with video cases, and one time had tapped a pencil while he rambled to Billy about a new movie he’d just seen only for the pencil to go flipping into the air and hit a customer in the head. Steve had been a _mess_ after that pencil flip.

Sometimes Steve’s eyelashes fluttered when he spoke to Billy.

Sometimes Steve invited Billy to his_ house_ where, so far, Billy sat stiffly on Steve’s couch, staring at the television while having no idea what was happening on screen because Steve Harrington was sitting right next to him and the only thing that didn’t make those nights unbearable was Robin who sat on the floor and ate popcorn and treated Billy like he was already her close friend.

Steve was maybe something.

If they could ever get their shit together. 

He wanted his mother to meet him.

He assumed she would not to be embarrassing. 

This turned out to be a terrible assumption.

She was a mom after all.

“You want to rent a movie?” He blurted out, slurping up the last of his milkshake. It made that croaking noise as he slurped up air with the last of the ice cream.

She giggled at that, raising her eyebrows. Just another night hanging out with his mom. Rent a movie or whatever. Totally normal.

“Sure!” She said. “That would be nice.”

He didn’t even know where she was staying in town. That was one of those important adult questions he should have asked. 

They’d walked to town and now they walked to Family Video and the chill air felt good on his skin, blowing through his ponytail. He was increasingly nervous as they neared the big video store, the Palace Arcade sign looming there in the parking lot.

The bell jingled above the door as Billy held it open for his mother, and his gaze immediately went to Steve when they walked in. Like usual, Steve was behind the counter, and when he saw Billy, he lit up, grinning widely. 

Robin’s voice rang out from the Action section. “Hey, Billy!”

“Hey!” Steve said. He crossed his arms, leaning on his counter. He hadn’t even seemed to notice Billy was with somebody, Steve’s eyes locked only on him. “Didn’t think I’d see you today.”

That was one of those things Steve said that made Billy think he should be making a move, but the thought made his palms sweaty. _No _girl had ever made his palms sweaty.

“Yeah, um…” He rubbed the back of his neck, shifting on his feet. “Had a weird day?”

Steve’s smile faltered. “You okay?”

“Yeah! Um…” Billy gestured vaguely to his mom who stood, smiling brightly in her pretty Gunne Sax dress and her long coat and her blonde, feathered hair. “Steve, this is my mom. My real...mom.” Billy coughed, his cheeks burning. He knew his ears must be bright red and he lamented his ponytail that showed them off. “Mom, this is a friend of mine? Steve Harrington?”

He suddenly felt absolutely ridiculous, like he should be wearing a little suit and a bow tie.

He blamed his mother. Every time she called him “my sweet boy” he felt like he was changing just a little. He felt like he was putting a finger on who he would’ve turned out to be if his father hadn’t gotten in the way.

“That’s your _mom_?” Robin popped out from behind Action and hurried over to stand with Steve. “Wow! Nice to meet you!” She shook his mother’s hand, pumping it up and down. “I’m Robin! I’m _also_ Billy’s friend.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “But I’m not quite as..._important_ as dingus here.”

Billy clenched his jaw and saw his mother realize what was happening. She smiled and her nose scrunched up just like his did when he was making a face. “_Oh_. So nice to meet you both!” She shook Steve’s hand. “So nice to meet you, Steve!”

_I am an idiot_, he thought.

“We should have them over!” His mother said. Then she frowned. “Oh, but I can’t do that without asking Susan-”

“You should come to my house!” Steve said, his voice pitching up funny. “We can just um… And Susan and Max can come? I have a good house for like...company? We could order pizza or…”

Everyone stared at Billy, who coughed, feeling like he should have really died in the mall.

“Yeah alright,” he mumbled. “Um…”

Steve looked so happy about the whole thing.

He was really so weird...and pretty.

“Okay,” he said. “Yeah.”

They hung around browsing movies for a while and his mother embarrassed him so intensely that he regretted the entire thing.

“Billy _loved_ that Disney movie, the one about Robin Hood but it’s a fox?” His mother was saying. She had fallen into deep conversation with Steve and seemed determined to relate every detail of his childhood as Billy stood silently by, vibrating with mortification. Robin had hung on her every word too until she was pulled away to help a customer.

He couldn’t help but notice though that Steve looked utterly delighted by every little bit of new information. He kept grinning at Billy with bright, sparkling eyes and saying, “Yeah? That so?”

When his mother checked her watch and said they should be getting back to the house before Susan got home, he thought he was safe.

Then on their way out, just as they were pushing open the door, his mother said, “So is Steve a boyfriend? Is that your boyfriend?”

He felt like he was choking and he turned crimson as he glanced back at Steve who gaped at them both, his eyes like saucers.

“_Mom_.” He dragged her out into the parking lot, fumbling with his cigarettes. “Not if he hears you say that! _Jesus_!”

* * *

“I like her," Steve said.

They were smoking out by Steve’s pool.

Things inside were oddly normal. Susan and his mother were getting along okay and his mother was apparently going to find a room to rent. Steve had pointed out that the trailer formerly owned by Chief Hopper was now up for rent by the owner of the lot where it was parked by the water. She’d liked the sound of it.

“”Course you like her,” Billy said, smirking. “She’s got all kinds of shit on me. Jesus. If I have to hear one more baby story about myself-”

“I love hearing that stuff,” Steve muttered. He’d clearly not meant to say it aloud and now he shut his eyes, his mouth a tight line as he rubbed his chin. “I mean, I mean…”

“What do you mean, pretty boy?” Billy said. He felt like he was walking on air. Steve took a drag on his smoke and the smoke spiraled up in front of his eyes. The sun had set but the lights out by the pool made Steve’s eyes glimmer.

“She thinks I’m your boyfriend?” Steve said, looking down at their shoes. He licked his lips.

“Uh…”

“I want to be your boyfriend,” Steve said, raising his eyes.

They stared at each other until Billy finally lurched forward and kissed Steve, the two of them dropping their cigarettes and taking hold of each other, making out for a while out by the pool before they finally pulled apart again, grinning like dopes.

“Oh shit,” Steve whispered. “This is terrible.”

“What?” Billy felt panic suddenly, that Steve already regretted it.

Steve grinned and said, “Nothing. Just, I owe Robin twenty bucks now.”

Billy blurted a laugh and muttered, “You son of a…” He walked Steve backward and his pretty boy laughed, shaking his head, knowing just what was coming. But he let Billy shove him into the pool anyway. 

“Dickhead!” Steve shouted, popping up in the water and pushing his hair back.

Billy shrugged and took off his flannel shirt and his shoes before diving in after Steve.

They were splashing each other and hooting before Robin and Max, and Susan, and Julia came out to see them acting like fools in the pool.

“Oh my God, you dummies!” Max said, laughing. Susan just shook her head, chortling to herself.

“What are you boys doing?” Julia said. “It’s freezing out here!”

“Yeah, but my boyfriend’s an asshole, mom,” Billy said, before splashing Steve again.

“Dingus!” Robin said. “You owe me twenty bucks!”


End file.
